Research & Reports
Variable Funds-of-Funds Keep Increasing In Number, Accumulating Assets
Compared to the bull market years, the role that underlying sub-accounts play in the sale of variable insurance products has certainly been diminished, however, a storyline that holds much interest for us is how money...
Reflecting on the Year Almost Past: 2006 in the Variable Annuity Business
As the holiday season is now upon us, in our last commentary of the year we’ll take the opportunity to quickly consider how things went for the variable annuity business in 2006, using currently-available data,...
Impressions on the Variable Annuity Business in 2007 – Part I
Last year at this time we published a commentary with our reflections on how the variable annuity industry performed in 2006, based on what we knew at that point, and made some suggestions as to...
Contract Compilation – Our Remarks on the Latest VAs Filed This Year
In the interest of remaining on top of what’s happening with variable annuity contracts, and given the fact that we haven’t touched on them for several months, this week we’ll give our observations on chassis...
What the Competition Dictates: Continual Refinements to VA Benefit Features
This year might be winding down, but in the variable annuity space we are still encountering registrations of new living benefits and enhancements to existing ones, although a good portion of them won’t actually roll...
How We Did Last Summer – Appraising Public Insurers’ VA Results from 3Q07
After reviewing third-quarter variable annuity deposits and net flows for the group of major publicly-traded insurers we regularly track, we found most of them endured at least a slight decrease in deposits compared to the...
Some Thoughts on Variable Annuity Sales Trends – As Earnings Season Begins
We honestly look forward to each quarterly earnings season for publicly-traded insurers, because the statistical reports and conference calls always contain plenty of useful information on variable product sales. In this report we’re going to...
Variable Annuity Contract Update: Getting Current With New Registrations
Needless to say, there’s been an abundance of new guaranteed living benefits coming out this year however this week we’re shifting our focus to check back in on new variable annuity contract registrations, something we...
Focusing In On Lifetime Withdrawal Benefits – and Related Income Stories
It’s time again for us to catch up on what’s been happening with variable annuity lifetime withdrawal benefits because there have been numerous new filings lately, as well as a few developments from elsewhere in...